Determining Marketing Effectiveness Even If You Didn't Track

What if you've done a variety of marketing activities over the past year, but you did not establish any way to track the response? Now you don’t know what worked and what didn’t. What can you do?

Keywords:

marketing, how to market, marketing effectiveness, tracking, response rates

Article Body:

What if you've done a variety of marketing activities over the past year, but you did not establish any way to track the response? Now you don’t know what worked and what didn’t.

Is there anything you can do now before you continue with your marketing efforts and potentially continue spending money on not-so-effective marketing activities?

First of all, don’t beat yourself up. You are not alone. In fact, one of my biggest challenges as a marketing consultant has been to get my clients to track the effectiveness of their various marketing activities.

The first thing to do is recognize the importance of tracking, and make sure that you have a plan in place to track all of your future marketing activities. The simplest way to track is to ask each new customer where or how they found out about you.


You may also want to consider including a code on any flyers or brochures that you distribute, and providing a reason for the customer to bring that flyer in when they come to make a purchase. Reasons to return the flyer could be to take advantage of a special offer, or to get a discount or free bonus gift.


You can also do this by phone or on the Internet if that is how your customers make purchases. Simply ask them to provide you with the code on the brochure or flyer that they are calling or ordering from. Make sure the code is specific to the location or group of people that you distributed the flyer to.


If you are networking or speaking to a group and someone gives you their business card and agrees to receive your free report or e-newsletter, make sure you include a reference in your contact database of the event where you met them.


As far as tracking your past marketing activities, consider asking your current customers how they found out about you.

You could do a survey that includes a number of customer satisfaction questions, but also includes a question to determine how they found out about you.


If you have a handful of clients that you work closely with and you really don’t know how they found you, pick up the phone and ask them.

Either of these tactics should give you an idea of what marketing activities worked and which ones you may be able to do without in the future.

If you're still not sure, continue with all the marketing activities, BUT put tracking mechanisms into place so you won't end up in the same boat next year.

(C) 2005 Debbie LaChusa, 10stepmarketing

Business Groups - Market For Maximum Effectiveness

Business groups like the Chamber of Commerce provide many excellent marketing opportunities. By being an involved and active member you will maximize your membership in a business group.

Keywords:

Business group, Business-group

Article Body:

Business groups like the Chamber of Commerce provide many excellent marketing opportunities. The members of these types of business groups are all business owners and many of them will fit into your sweet-spot profile. What better way to get to know the decision makers in these businesses?

Maximize Your Exposure in Business Groups

Don't simply join a business group and remain a passive bystander. To get the most out of your business group experience you need to get involved. Here are some tips:

When you join one of these business groups immediately make yourself known to the Executive Director, the office staff and the officers, as well as the people on the board.

Volunteer for a committee. This is an excellent way to meet and really get to know some of the local small business owners.

Speak at the meetings and events.

Exhibit and take out a little table at the next expo or event held by the business group. These are usually inexpensive and are a low risk proposition.

Send a direct mail to the business group members on the master list introducing them to your company and your services.

Invite the whole business group membership to seminars or events you are holding.

Attend and network at the business group meetings regularly; 8 or 10 a year is a good number.

There are no sure things but the active members of a business group, the board, and the committee chairs tend to be loyal to the inner circle of their fellow business group supporters. It’s almost like a fraternity or sorority.

The Bottom Line on Business Groups

The key to getting the most out of a business group is to be an active member. Keep your name in front of the membership. Remember to do your follow up. You want the business group members to know your name and think of you first when they have a computer issue. If you are patient and persistent your business group membership will pay off.

Copyright MMI-MMVI, Small Business Computer Consulting .com. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}

Effectiveness Of Internet Advertising – You Bet!

Effectiveness for me is overrated. That’s why all this hubbub and fuss about finding and then constructing measurement schemes for internet advertising that allow for universal terminology, comparable systems, standardized measurement, scalable auditing, and all the rest just puts a burr in my saddle.

Keywords:

Effectiveness Of Internet Advertising

Article Body:

Effectiveness for me is overrated. That’s why all this hubbub and fuss about finding and then constructing measurement schemes for internet advertising that allow for universal terminology, comparable systems, standardized measurement, scalable auditing, and all the rest just puts a burr in my saddle. I think we need to get back to the basics.

My mom once told me that it was the thought that counts. She also one time told me that I was a horrible person, so I don’t take everything that she says as gospel, but on this one I feel she’s on to something. Thought. Intention. These are the building blocks upon which a job poorly done is created and summarily congratulated.

You tried. I see you really, really tried…and that’s what means something to me kid. Keep up the good work.”

That’s the kind of response to failure that we should be supporting, preferring and engaging in on a daily basis. What’s this overwhelming value that we’ve given to effectiveness gotten us anyways? The economy’s still going through that crest and trough thing, the dollar’s down, oil’s up, cardiology is in ever growing demand and kids are shooting up schools like its part of the mandatory curriculum.

Sure, there’s some things that have come with actually meeting high expectations, but do they outweigh the bad? I don’t know. If we had some form of effective measurement we could come to a scientifically deduced and pragmatically derived at answer. But we don’t, so let’s keep it at that it’s the thought that counts.

Cost Effectiveness of IT Outsourcing

Outsourcing your IT can save your company money due to less down time, increase your companies performance due to more reliable and robust IT solutions, and give you superior overall service because they compete for your business.

Keywords:

computer utah, computer service provo utah, computer provo utah, business computer solution utah, computer consulting in utah, computer consulting utah

Article Body:

Small businesses have been contracting computer consultants to fix their computers for many years. Usually this is because they have a small number of computers and hiring someone full time to maintain these small networks is not economical or efficient.

This article will focus on the three main benefits that companies experience when they choose to outsource their computer services through a third party. They may even employ or have employed their own IT staff in the past.

#1 Save Money & Time. Computer consultants are very cost effective, efficient and time saving, especially if you contract them on a retainer basis. A retainer is a prepaid service fee, usually paid monthly. This retainer service contract puts the consulting firm “on call” and no matter when, what, or how long it takes the firm to solve the problem they are legally and ethically bound to fix it so long as the services rendered are in the boundaries of the service contract. The more time the consultant spends the less per hour they make, intrinsically motivating them to be efficient. If your network is down and you are losing money by the minute, you will feel comforted to see this computer consultant firm onsite fixing the problem.

#2 Increased Company Performance. When hiring a computer consulting firm you are getting the combined experience of the whole firm plus all of their partners and resources. Even if your company has a full time IT person or two they may not have all the expertise needed to create the dependable robust IT solution needed to solve your problems. A consulting firm will complete the project with a more reliable and robust solution because their combined ability is greater. A more robust and reliable IT solution will boost your performance as a company.

#3 Professional Courtesy. A computer consulting firm is a different company than yours. Like you they are motivated to keep their clientele and expand their market share. Their reputation is the most important advertising tool they have. They compete against other IT firms, usually generating referrals to gain market share, a better reputation is worth its weight in gold. Thus they are naturally motivated to provide superior overall service to you.

In conclusion, outsourcing your IT can save your company money due to less down time, increase your company’s performance due to more reliable and robust IT solutions, and give you superior overall service because they compete for your business.

Business Growth Requires Individual Effectiveness

When we read about business growth in the top business periodicals, they always refer to the multi-national corporations. I’m not a large corporation. I’m not even incorporated.

But for the purpose of this discussion, think of your business as a corporation. You hold the office of president of this corporation, and you're responsible for its success or failure. You and the members of your team are stockholders in your corporation, and it's your responsibility to see that ...

Keywords:

growth,effectiveness,individual

Article Body:

When we read about business growth in the top business periodicals, they always refer to the multi-national corporations. I’m not a large corporation. I’m not even incorporated.

But for the purpose of this discussion, think of your business as a corporation. You hold the office of president of this corporation, and you're responsible for its success or failure. You and the members of your team are stockholders in your corporation, and it's your responsibility to see that the value of the stock increases in the years ahead.

If your company is growing, it will have a tendency to continue to grow because you're doing things right. Conversely, a company that is going backwards or shrinking has a tendency to continue to go backwards or shrink until acted upon by an outside force. All responsible company officers know that unless the company is growing, it's showing the first signs of death. As the head of your corporation (be it 1, 5 or 50 people), you must realize that this applies to you as well.

However, because you are also a person, you have a tremendous advantage over even the largest corporation. Think of any large multi-national corporation. Can it double its production in a single day? Of course not. Can it double its sales in a single day? Of course not. It might like to, but its growth must be gradual and steady because of the complexities of such a large organization. Yet a person can double, triple, quadruple his/her effectiveness in a month or less. Small businesses have the flexibility, control and responsiveness which corporate giants lack.

Can you grow and improve as a person at least 10% a year? Of course you can. In fact, experts estimate a person can increase his or her effectiveness anywhere from 50% to 100% and more within 30 days. Now apply that to your entire business.

Some examples:

I’ve increased readership of this newsletter 300% in the last 60 days.

In his Freshman year in college my nephew got a 2.1GPA first semester; but got motivated to study, applied himself, and delivered a 3.6 GPA for second semester.

I remember the days in sales when my datebook looked like pure snow (no appointments). Then I accepted a challenge to have 10 appointments on the books every week (most of my peers averaged 3-5 appointments). My previous year’s sales became my monthly sales.

History is filled with people who exceeded their previous performance to an almost unbelievable extent (artists, athletes, musicians, orators, military and political leaders, not to mention the corporate rags to riches stories).

Think about what that means. If you waste even an hour of productive time every work day, it adds up to 250 hours a year. If you had an employee who wasted that much time, would you keep him on the payroll or fire him?

What is your time worth per hour? Multiply this by 250 and you can see what you're throwing away. The effect is compounded when you tally the cost for each member of your team. Whether your business pays for this wasted hour or not, is unimportant. Rather, what can you do now to improve the effectiveness of every member of your team?

Here’s the challenge from Earl Nightengale:

"How much are you worth right now, today, as a corporation? What's your value today, to yourself, your family, your company? I f you were an outside investor, a stranger, would you invest in this corporation? What attention are you giving to the growth of your corporation?"